Next Learning System

by Roland Meighan

Most families opting out of schooling into home-based education are reluctant educational heretics. Many are, at first, uncomfortable about their 'heresy' in questioning the dogmas of mass schooling, and seek reassurance by keeping lines of communication open with the system for later examination work or subject-based study. Few families see themselves as field-testing some of the features of next education system, even though that is clearly the consequences of their success. Their aim is more modest - to bring happiness to a child or two. Their radicalism is either accidental or incidental. They discover the approach of the catalogue curriculum without necessarily knowing it or appreciating its total contrast with the totalitarian nature of an adult imposed compulsory curriculum such as a National Curriculum. The success of the families frequently comes as a pleasant surprise to them and the reasons for the effectiveness of their learning often remain somewhat unarticulated. Others who observe and research their learning are often better placed to show why they soon pass the achievements of their schooled counterparts and to indicate how they are blazing a trail for the next learning system to replace our obsolete mass schooling system.

76 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997